


Me and the Blue Healer

by allineedisaquill



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bisexual Pat (Ghosts TV 2019), Canon Gay Character, Canon Universe, Episode: s01e01 Who Do You Think You Are?, Feelings, First Kiss, First Time, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, The Captain is Gay (Ghosts TV 2019), non-graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22655563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allineedisaquill/pseuds/allineedisaquill
Summary: “There. You see, Pat? What did I tell you?” He said stubbornly, his bottom lip quivering just barely. “That’s where talking gets you: nowhere.”“It was silly of me to suggest it, really,” Pat said from beside him, tone light. “Lesson learnt.”Together they learned just how wrong they were.
Relationships: The Captain/Pat (Ghosts TV 2019)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 116





	Me and the Blue Healer

**Author's Note:**

> This one has been floating around my noggin for months. I've thought about this scene a lot and FINALLY this fic is realised and complete. Just a little one-shot to fill the gap between the next update of The World In Colour. 
> 
> Title of course is taken from Blue Healer by Birdtalker, one of my favourite songs and a major inspiration for the tone of this story to be honest. Listen to it while you read and you'll see. Thank you. Enjoy!

The Captain wanted to believe it.

The other ghosts had not been a help; Katherine’s suggestion to jump before bed and Julian’s compromise to jump silently had made his face contort to exasperated disbelief. He was wholly fed up with his perpetual state of annoyance and something very much needed to give. Pat’s conclusion that Fanny’s confession would bring about peaceful nights - albeit optimistic in a way that was very Pat indeed - was something he elected to give a small chance, for his own sake. Pat may have been much more naively hopeful about his theory than the Captain himself was, but nonetheless it remained the only feasible one offered up.

He rolled his eyes to himself and let out a small huff, reminded of the other ghosts and their usual incompetence. God only knew that they rarely had two working brain cells to rub together between them, a hopeless lot who would be lost without his leadership, but despite them he was determined to enjoy his afterlife with a delightful garden view if it was the last thing he did. He had earned it as far as he was concerned, and so he marched resolutely on from the east wing in the direction of his new room.

Pat was already waiting when he turned the corner of the dark hallway, sat on the floor with his back to the wall as he stared up at the old grandfather clock. The younger man smiled his way and gave him a little wave, to which the Captain simply raised an eyebrow as he approached.

“You had better be right about this,” he grumbled, already impatient.

“Give it a chance, it’s not time yet,” Pat said cheerily before he patted the space beside him. “You can sit, if you like.”

The Captain felt his joints hurt at the thought. “No thank you. I’ll stand.”

“Suit yourself.”

With heavy reluctance, the Captain finally lowered his protesting body to the floor once ten slow minutes passed with nothing but the ticking of the clock and Pat’s quiet but incessant humming for company. 

“You can stop that right now, thank you very much,” he said shortly as he arranged his swagger stick neatly across his lap and held it tight.

Pat pulled a sheepish face and did as he was told.

As every excruciating second escaped them, the Captain fought against the feeling of ridiculousness, resisted the temptation to call it a night and stalk back to his old room in resignation. 

He should have known to expect something when Pat pushed up his gold spectacles and turned to him fully. “Talk to me; it’s too quiet,” he said. “Maybe you could tell me something about yourself. I don’t know that much.”

The Captain, knuckles white from a tightened grip on his stick, focused on the clock’s hands as they moved. “If you don’t know much, Patrick, perhaps it’s entered your mind that it’s deliberate,” he said tightly, prickling as Pat’s attention zeroed in on him. He’d never quite learned to share with the group. He didn’t plan on starting, arm’s length as close as he ever got to anyone. It was just easier for everyone that way.

“It’s just that we don’t even know your name, that’s all, and it would be nice—”

“What would be _nice_ is to have some peace and quiet,” the Captain interjected sharply. “I didn’t ask to be stuck here with the nosy undead who cannot keep their nibs out of other people’s business because they’re bored and restless, but these are the cards I have been dealt and I think I’m at least entitled to keep my life to myself. So if that’s settled, I shall sit here quietly and wait to see if your little theory is correct and then we can call it a night. Talking gets us nowhere.”

Pat said nothing for a good minute, then he muttered, “Sorry. I was just trying to pass the time. ‘Course you’re entitled to your privacy.”

“Good,” the Captain said, and the blue-hued shadows of the hallway seemed to swallow the single word, engulfing them in further silence.

The clock ticked on and the Captain felt familiar resentment in his chest, the tight coil of it unfurling with each second that elapsed. Not allowing others to see the inner workings of himself was the only way he knew to survive and he had thought that tactic more pertinent than ever with infinity stretched out before him, but he couldn’t deny that he was tantalised by the idea of someone taking him apart to see what parts made him into a whole. He remained the same echo of who he once was but the illusion of power and importance became harder to keep a hold of, the use of his title in replace of a name simply a barrier that he questioned his need for with each year that passed him by.

Beneath the surface, tangled in with every feeling he warred with, sat the fear of rejection. Once he was known, he couldn’t be unseen, and if they respected him more as a title than a person then he wasn’t sure he wanted the mask to slip.

“We’re not undead, though,” Pat said, making the Captain jump slightly. “That sounds more like a zombie thing. We’re ghosts,” he continued as he twiddled his thumbs in his lap and shrugged. “Sorry. Just saying.”

The Captain barked a laugh, sudden and unavoidable, then he shook his head and let it fall with a dull thud to the wall behind him. It was possible he was simply stir crazy, but his shoulders shook and his chuckles came low and deep. 

“What’s funny?” Pat asked bemusedly as he watched him.

The Captain sighed. “This is truly where I’ve ended up,” he said, though it was hardly an epiphany. His eyes cast to the ceiling. “In the house keeping me captive for eternity, waiting to see if a fellow ghost can stop screaming so I can have some semblance of quietude.”

Pat echoed his laughter then but the Captain wasn’t sure he found anything funny at all. It was strained and forced. He felt a brief stab of guilt and flitted his gaze over to the other man, his stubby and fidgeting fingers twisting anxiously in his lap still. He’d simply been trying to fill the silence. All they ever did was try to fill the silence.

“Really puts your life in perspective, doesn’t it?” Pat asked.

He let his gaze narrow at the blank wall in front of him. “Yes, I suppose it does.”

“It’s worse at night. The house feels so big. Everything does. We’re just completely out of touch and it frightens me sometimes. When I can’t sleep I end up just torturing myself over how long I’ll have to spend here. Alone.”

It was a confession the Captain didn’t expect. His eyebrows pushed up as his eyes widened just slightly. Pat was staring at his own hands, twisting the watch strapped to his wrist and looking so impossibly small in the gloom of the hall. It was odd to witness; though Pat was shorter than most of them in stature, he usually quite made up for it with his friendly, forward nature. You couldn’t miss him, but there in shroud of night tucked against the wall, he almost disappeared.

In all of it, it had somehow never crossed his mind that Pat would get lonely too. He only ever saw him with a spring in his step, his ever-present smile and positive outlook being the glue that held them all together. If they ever wavered, it was him that picked their moods up and convinced them to try again while the Captain focused solely on cold, detached strategy. Pat was feeling. He was warm despite the eternal cold they’d all been plunged into. He hadn’t the faintest clue how to go about offering comfort, if that was what Pat was seeking.

He swallowed, looking at him like it was for the first time, seeing himself reflected there in all stark and unforgiving honesty. 

They weren’t so different and that _was_ an epiphany, a comparison he never thought he’d make. There was enough middle ground to bridge them together; he understood after all, insurmountable hours of isolation spent agonising over his unchangeable fate. Knowing that Pat, of all the ghosts, felt the same way he did so often… It made the urge to be seen return. Pat threatened to disturb the overcast cloud cover he’d gotten so used to being shrouded in. 

“The world carries on and we’re left behind,” the Captain murmured. The mask could slip, just for a fraction. Some of Pat’s sunlight could get in, sacred slivers of gold to fill the deep recesses he harboured. He never took his eyes off the other man, steeled by the thought that if anyone would accept what they found underneath his manufactured veil, well, he knew Pat to be the best of them all.

Pat met his eyes with nothing but kindness, understanding. “Yep.” His lips tugged like they wanted to smile but he couldn’t quite manage it, pained and sorrowful. “I try and make the best of it, don’t get me wrong, but I think I get on people’s nerves a bit. Not sure everyone’s so keen on passing the time with food club.” 

“It can wear thin,” the Captain said honestly with a grumble, but quickly followed it with, “but for the record, it does wonders to keep that lot entertained - at least for a bit. I’m certainly grateful for that.” He gave him an actual smile and Pat seemed reservedly pleased at the unexpected show of gratitude. It kept the Captain’s smile in place for an extra second.

“I suppose it’s just easy to feel lonely even when I’m not the only one here. We all come from different places, it’s hard to meet in the middle.”

The Captain opened his mouth to say something else, but whatever lacklustre assurances he could cobble together and utter went unsaid as Pat’s hand patted his own before he struggled to his feet. He quietly mourned the loss of their conversation, the first true connection with another soul since he had died not something he was eager to let go of, but it was placated by the lingering heat from where Pat had briefly touched him. It spread over his skin, dissipating his armour just a bit more. It felt heavenly.

“It’s time!” Pat said excitedly.

A cursory glance at the clock told him he was right. It was 3 am on the dot.

He was grateful to stretch his legs again at least but he barely bit back a groan as his knees popped. Crossing to where the smaller man was poised expectantly in the doorway, he glanced back at the clock again, and together they waited with bated breath to see if Pat’s hopeful advice would actually pay off.

It did not. 

Fanny fell as she always did, and the Captain followed her shrill scream with a frustrated shout of her name. 

The trees blew in the wind beyond the moonlit window of his room and he felt all hope spill miserably out of him. He was envious of their sway, how they could still feel the breeze and he couldn’t. They weren’t trapped by time, reliving a moment on a loop. They were alive. They could tower tall and withstand so much and they could just _be._

“There. You see, Pat? What did I tell you?” He said stubbornly, his bottom lip quivering just barely. “That’s where talking gets you: nowhere.” 

He could not stop staring, hating it all.

“It was silly of me to suggest it, really,” Pat said from beside him, tone light. “Lesson learnt. What shall we do?”

The man called him to action, to think up a plan B and try their damnedest to get the result they’d been aiming for. As always, it was down to him to make a decision, to push on, to find the solution. It didn’t matter if he had the answers or not. It didn’t matter if he could barely solve himself.

“I don’t know,” he answered shortly, sighing, “but I’m not going to spend eternity listening to that racket at the same time every night.”

He turned on his heel, shoulders slumped in defeat, but he stopped short just as Pat did in front of the old grandfather clock. 

His eyes met Pat’s once, twice, in the dark. 

“It’s worth a try,” Pat gushed, confirming they were on the same page.

The Captain met him with a reluctant noise however, head tipped back discerningly as he held Pat’s gaze. He was unsure he could take double disappointment and Pat flitting from defeatist to optimist once again left him dubious. It was only a pair of sure eyes, brilliant and blue, that convinced him to call Julian upstairs.

After a brief battle with the clock hands, all that was left to do once again was wait. He intended to get some sleep if he was to be woken at a reasonable hour by Fanny’s screaming instead of three in the morning, but try as he might, he could not seem to get Pat off his mind. The man in question had retreated downstairs with Julian and he’d been so tempted to ask him to stay, to see if their second plan would work, but he was still hung up on the first plan’s failure and he couldn’t stop thinking about what Pat had said so casually.

He hadn’t wanted it to be silly, that was the truth of the matter, and he resented Pat for buckling so easily even if they’d had proof right before them that talking hadn’t fixed the issue. He had hoped against odds that Fanny’s confession would bring about her peace. He had hoped that he could follow her lead, that relieving himself of the things that burdened him most would make him lighter, happier. He had wanted so desperately for Pat to be right, and he was so damned _angry_ that he hadn’t been, and angrier still that his afflictions went unseen, always unseen. He was so tired of holding up his mask. His arms were weary. They ached from the weight of it. 

“I was wrong,” a small voice said from the doorway. 

The Captain sat up sharply. His back creaked in the silence and he could only stare at Pat’s figure illuminated in silvery blue. He swallowed harshly. 

“You were?” He asked, an octave higher higher than usual, lifted like his brows as Pat took a step inside his room, then another, and another and another and another until he was standing at the foot of his bed. 

He nodded and looked down, tapping his fingers meekly against the bed frame. “I was, yeah,” he said. “I know it didn’t stop her from falling from the window, but I’m still glad she got it off her chest. I’m sure it made her feel better either way, didn’t it? So it wasn’t silly. It couldn’t ever be silly. I think talking can do wonders, I really do, and I know you feel the same. Talking to you tonight…it really helped.”

The Captain was quiet. He blinked rapidly, taking it in like ice water to the lungs. He wondered if this Pat was nothing more than a figment, the ghost of a ghost, come to taunt him with the words he wanted to hear. He hummed and closed his eyes, body swaying where he sat. It was just one more thing to will away. He could manage that. He could.

When two warm palms pressed to his cheeks, he opened his eyes again. 

Pat stood over him, holding his face in his hands like he held the world itself. His gaze dripped with remorse, falling upon him like warm rain to cleanse him, washing away the very last of his impenetrable veneer. The Captain’s own eyes widened, watery azure, and he let out one long and shaky breath as finally, _finally_ , someone saw him for the first time. 

“I’m sorry,” Pat murmured, the pads of his thumbs tracing just beneath the lines at the corners of his eyes.

“Pat,” the Captain said, mostly a mouthing of the word rather than an actual utterance. He couldn’t seem to get his voice to work. He couldn’t _breathe_.

“It doesn’t need to be the answer to anything. You can say things if it hurts you not to,” Pat whispered, running his thumbs over his skin. “That’s a good enough reason, yeah?”

The Captain nodded and swallowed, staring up at Pat dumbly. “Though one would argue that sometimes actions speak louder than words.”

A moment of clarity occurred, gazes locked in silent understanding, and then Pat’s lips pressed in a warm apology to his and he felt like he was _floating._ It was still slightly hesitant on Pat’s part until he craned his neck up, seeking out his kiss, whiskery and soft and enough to make his hands encircle Pat’s wrists and hold tight. That seemed to do the trick, the other man leading one careful brush of lips into the next and leaving the Captain all too happy to follow them.

Open-mouthed and deeper by the second, the Captain couldn’t ever remember a kiss leaving his world on so much of a tilt. He was deliciously off-kilter, head swimming as a leg nudged between his in order to be closer. The Captain’s chest pressed to his abdomen and his face was still preciously cupped in his hands. Everything spun behind his eyelids and he wasn’t sure if the sensation of falling backwards was real until his back connected with the mattress and Pat became a gentle heaviness astride his lap. 

“Good lord,” he said quickly, staring awed in disbelief.

Pat giggled but quickly sobered. “Okay?” He asked, worried, pushing his glasses back up his nose where they’d slipped down the bridge.

It was more than okay. He felt feverish, positively on fire, the welcome weight of another man above him not where he expected the early morning hours to lead. It was dizzying and electrifying. He had hankered for it, wanted it, dreamt of satiating touches and tight embraces and ankles hooked with his own. It did not seem real to have Pat there, gazing down at him with endless patience and adoration that surely couldn’t have been reserved and meant for _him._ It defied everything he knew of their world, their life, their pocket of existence invisible and impossible to most. Yet there Pat was, asking for one more leap of faith.

He reached out with trembling hands. They landed first at Pat’s thighs and travelled slowly north until they could grasp at his waist, fingers bumping over his belt and its loops until they settled just above. He marvelled at the warmth beneath his touch, squeezed gently at plump skin hidden beneath a crinkled shirt. He felt a thrill when Pat reacted, leaning into the touch.

“Yes,” he said, intent and deep. “I’m just surprised. I didn’t know men were your cup of tea, too.” It felt funny to say out loud; it had been so long since he had. But he had no reason not to trust Pat with it even if it made his cheeks flame.

Pat smiled with one side of his mouth, bashful. “I’ve thought about telling you a few times, you know, when I realised you were gay,” he said, and the way his hands gently caressed the shiny buttons of his uniform jacket made any flinching reaction forgotten. “I didn’t want to force you to have a conversation you weren’t ready to have. Tonight, though... Well I had to say _something_.”

The Captain’s chest ached at that. It tightened, painful, punching the breath from his lungs. He never knew how careful the other man had been with his feelings and his privacy or for how long and the appreciation swelled in him like an orchestra, too powerful to ignore. 

“You’re extraordinary,” he managed to say, still breathless. “Thank you.”

He was regarded with a slow blink and a smile and then Pat answered him surely, crowding down into the Captain’s space and filling it up with himself. He caught his mouth like he’d done it a thousand times and together they were lost, drinking in each other. 

“I’m a lot of things,” Pat said proudly, his fingers curled at the Captain’s tie. They tugged at the knot and he smiled into the kiss. “I wasn’t sure if ‘your type’ was one of them. Could have been embarrassing for me, that.”

“Ah, let me see.” The Captain counted on his fingers, holding them up so Pat could clearly see. “Suited to leadership. Strong. Handsome. A moustache to rival my own. Need I go on?” 

Pat raised an eyebrow, his cheeks pink. He touched his own moustache. “Really? This does it for you? Not that I’m complaining.” 

“I’m partial to how facial hair looks,” the Captain said, a large hand splayed across Pat’s chest. “And how it feels,” he added, staring deliberately at his own fingers and hoping to God that Pat would get the hint and perhaps kiss him in more places than his mouth. 

His eyes slipped shut when Pat pressed his lips to his jaw, apparently quick on the uptake. He let out a garbled noise, utterly embarrassing, but Pat continued determinedly and with each kiss, his hand closed until it was a fist against the other man’s shirt. The tickle and drag of his moustache left fire burning in its wake, setting his skin alight as he trailed down his throat. It was enough precise attention to make his nerve-endings sing, his body crackling and spine arching. He had barely been touched, but such was the scarcity of the actions that he was reduced to trembles with the smallest of them. 

“The arrow’s not in the way, is it?” Pat asked quietly. “Bloody thing.”

He let his eyes open and unclenched his fist, instead stroking a palm down the centre of Pat’s chest. “Not at all,” he assured. 

Pat licked his lips. “Good,” he said, and his hands found the lapels of the Captain’s uniform that time, fingers tracing their pins. They were so cold under his touch. “This is, though.” 

“In the way?” 

“Mm.” 

Pat’s fingers found his tie again. They loosened the knot until it hung open beneath his collar and he could slide it off in one smooth motion, the fabric making a soft sound as it slipped between his palms. The Captain held his breath, watching Pat with his lips slightly parted as his fingers in turn moved to the gold buttons of his uniform. He pushed a few carefully through their holes but was met with the next obstacle.

“Sit up for me,” he murmured softly, and it sounded like the smile he wore, warm and safe and endlessly affectionate. “Need to get your belt off, first.”

He went willingly, pushing himself up until they were face-to-face. The way Pat’s arms slipped around him in such close proximity, the man still settled across his lap, was startlingly intimate. Pat released the buckle to his Sam Browne easily enough and did the same with the belt at his waist, then he slid them both delicately off just as he had with his tie. It hit him then that nobody had ever taken such care with him the way Pat did. First in keeping his secrets guarded and second in handling him like he was something to be savoured, rushing the last thing on his mind. Their difference in size didn’t matter. Pat made him feel as though the entirety of him was contained, safe, in his gaze and his touch.

As soon as they were set aside, the Captain leaned in for a kiss, needing to be closer still. He had to convey somehow what words definitely could not, at least not in that moment. He wanted to touch, feel, give and take. He wanted _everything._ It was overwhelming all at once, needing so much and not knowing where to start.

“There we go,” Pat hummed just shy of his lips, pushing off his jacket after taking the time to deftly unbutton the rest of it. The Captain felt a wash of heat over him; it seemed when he lacked direction, Pat was there without question to show him the way. Whether led by blind optimism or motivated by desire, it didn’t matter to the Captain. All he cared about was a man - _this_ man, in particular - being ready and willing to lead him anywhere at all.

Pat’s hands ran across his shoulders, along his chest, trailed down his arms and back up the thin suspenders he wore. 

“Puts me to shame,” he said with a small laugh. “Look at you.”

He felt as though he were already bare despite the layers still between them and the Captain flushed, blinking hard. “Now, don’t tease me, please,” he insisted, his face warm. 

“Not teasing,” Pat said earnestly, kissing him once. 

“Yes, well,” he cleared his throat. “That aside, knocking yourself to compliment me is hardly flattering for anyone. You’re perfectly fine.” He smoothed his fingers down Pat’s scarf. He wondered if it was possible to remove it, what the injury beneath might look like if he could, but it hurt to think about Pat’s pain. 

To his amazement, Pat grasped his hands and lifted them until his lips could graze the knuckles on each one in turn. Such a simple action turned his insides molten and not for the first time that night, he was left to marvel at the man he was placing all of his utmost trust in.

“Sorry,” Pat said. “You’re right. I’m just a bit self-conscious, that’s all. We’re hardly cut from the same cloth, if you catch my drift. I’m all jiggly ‘round the edges. You’re definitely not.” He laughed in spite of himself and seemed relieved when the Captain raised an eyebrow and smirked himself. 

“Well it makes no odds to me,” he told him, and bravely he freed his hands from Pat’s and moved them to the buttons of Pat’s shirt instead. He undid them one by one and, hoping to ease the way the other man tensed just barely, pressed their mouths together sweetly as he did. 

Pat took it as a cue, sliding the suspenders off of broad shoulders and making short work of the shirt beneath. When they were pooled on the floor, there was little room to be bashful, drawn together like the pull of a magnet until Pat’s warm skin could meet the cooler skin of the Captain’s. Their lips barely left each other’s but it was far from frantic, instead a slow and heady friction that caused enough sparks to light a fire in them both. 

The Captain was lowered again and he sunk into the bliss with Pat above him, highlighted silver and blue, with as many kisses peppered to his skin as there were stars in the sky that night. The feverish feeling to his skin returned, burning him up in the best way as the kisses dotted, hot and persistent, down his throat and to his collarbones, over his sternum and further south to his abdomen that rolled and flexed under the sensitive touch and the brush of his moustache. 

There was scarcely a place untouched by his lips by the end and though the Captain wasn’t a holy man, his body felt something close to blessed as it bathed in Pat’s light, bowed and arched into the one above it. Fingertips dug into tender flesh, soft as a peach, holding on and drawing closer, squeezing when euphoria hit and loosening when they had ridden out the waves together.

The moon painted every little line of them silver and blue as they collided, hard and soft alike, their fingers woven and locked. With each simmering slant of mouths pressed, each shared and panted breath, every sigh of pleasure cast into the night or answered by a kiss, they forgot what it was to be lonely.

Eclipsed by Pat’s arms, held close with a head nestled against his chest, was the truest peace the Captain had known in what felt like forever. It was a simple and honest bliss and he shut his eyes to the world, the extent of his existence not even reaching beyond the bed they shared. All he focused on was the way Pat carded his fingers gently through his hair. He didn’t even mind that he stroked the strands out of place, heart still buzzing and all too content to be suspended in Pat’s embrace indefinitely. He knew they would be back in place by the morning regardless. Sighing, he turned his face inward more, nosing into the russet hair that dappled Pat’s warm chest.

Pat stroked his bare arm lazily beneath the heavy jacket they were using as a makeshift blanket, tracing moles and freckles. He kissed the top of the Captain’s head and murmured a sleepy, “Okay?”

“Mm,” the Captain hummed. He shifted his leg a little where it was hooked over one of Pat’s, needing a momentary stretch of his knee, then he placed it back and pressed a kiss in turn to Pat’s skin. “Can’t imagine you’re as comfortable as me right now, though. We can swap if you like.” He made no effort to move, however, and his satiated voice fully betrayed the fact that he did not, in fact, want to swap. 

His lover found it endearing and amusing if anything and the Captain adored the way he could feel the laughter rumble up beneath his ear. “I’m fine,” he said, referring to the angle he was lying at for his arrow’s sake. It worked as well as any other position and was the furthest thing on Pat’s mind, only bothered about the man curled around him and half draped over him, warm and languid and sweet. “Don’t move on my account. I like you like this.”

“If you’re sure,” the Captain said quietly.

“I am, yeah.”

“Good, because I’m rather comfortable.”

Pat’s laughter rumbled up again, softer that time, and the Captain’s joined it.

  
  


Tiredness took them both without a complaint soon after, the pair wrapped up in each other still. They didn’t awaken until the familiar shrill scream of their fellow ghost, and the chimes of the grandfather clock in the hallway, cut through the thick film of sleep to announce the morning. 

The Captain yawned and gave a pleasant stretch, his limbs bumping with shorter ones. He had a smug smile when he said, “Much better.”

Pat, having already stirred at the commotion, opened his eyes and met the Captain with a small, knowing smile. The pink light of dawn had replaced the icy tones of the previous night, making them both glow in the otherwise still-dim room.

“Finally. Things can get back to normal ‘round here,” the Captain said indignantly, but it was mostly feigned and melted completely when Pat leaned across the pillows to catch his lips in an easy kiss without so much as a word beforehand. The fabric of their clothes rustled softly, everything reset as if nothing had happened, as if the Captain couldn’t still feel the imprint of Pat’s mouth and hands all over his body. He shivered at the memories.

“Not completely back to normal, I hope,” Pat murmured when he pulled back. 

“No,” the Captain agreed.


End file.
